Editorial and moderation policy

Editorial policy

The Honest History website brings together material, existing and new, which presents key themes of Australia’s past (including perceptive treatments of the Anzac tradition), helps explain why Australia is as it is today, and assists readers to come to their own conclusions about what should be the building blocks of our future. It aims to encourage debate and stimulate informed discussion.

There is much more to Australian history than the Anzac tradition; there is much more to our war history than nostalgia and tales of heroism. Honest History has been set up to get those two messages across. Our approach is ‘not only Anzac, but also [many other strands of Australian history]’. We see history as complex with many interwoven, competing evidence-based strands. This sort of history should be the mainstream; hyperinflation of a particular strand is an anachronism.

We support balanced and honest history, particularly history in and of Australia. We are interested in how history is researched, written, presented and used. Where evidence is lacking or is used improperly, history becomes myth.

Moderation policy

We advocate a cause and seek to broaden our support. In the spirit of encouraging debate while remaining an advocacy site, Honest History will choose and commission items, commission writers and allow or disallow threads and contributions to threads in accord with its editorial policy and noting that there are outlets on other websites and in other media for expressions of opinion which are moderated out.

Moderation decisions will be made by the Editor. Irrelevance, incivility, personal attacks, defamatory language and attempts to deliberately disrupt discussion are further grounds upon which posts will be moderated out.

While the decision to use a pseudonym is a matter for individuals, we believe the quality of debate is enhanced if real names are used.

Disclaimer

History should be contestable. Honest History is committed to frank debate and expressing a diversity of opinions on specific issues. Consequently, contributions to our website are always attributed to individual writers, unless the contribution is purely administrative, involves collating without significant authorial input or is part of a collaborative task by contributors acknowledged collectively.

We do not claim or imply that every Honest History supporter agrees with everything that appears under the Honest History banner. Where individuals or associations are described publicly as ‘supporters’ of Honest History they have agreed to be so described.

Archiving

This website and Honest History newsletters are archived by the National Library of Australia under the Pandora web archive scheme.

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September 2013; updated April 2014, July 2014; checked December 2017; updated February 2019.

The Honest History association cancelled its incorporation in February 2019. The Honest History website continued under Dr David Stephens as Editor.

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